CRAZY FORMS

octobre 17, 2014

When I first came across Frank Gehry's work it was through my Mother who had visited the Guggenheim in Bilbao. She came back in raptures about the whole experience - except for one thing - stairs. As she was well into her 80's it didn't really strike me as being an oddity as I knew she disliked stairs at the best of time. When I visited it myself for the first time in 2006 - and I was NOT in my 80's and nor am I, I was appalled at the number of steps one had to climb. Gerhy is 85 today. I wonder if he has climbed up to the main doors at the Guggenheim recently?

See thos stairs ? And of course Louise Bourjois's spider was there to greet me...

This was the first retrospective of his work in France. Some 50 or 60 maquette grouped together and in my book, on top of one another. His achievements seem to be on the move, and sometimes they move at a crazy pace, it would seem. They are certainly unique, none of them falling within the scope of traditional or conventional architecture. The American-Canadian architect Frank Gehry has it all worked out with an orthogonal kind of organization since the start of the 1960s. It traces the milestones of his career through the presentation of his work, including the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, the Vitra Design Museum in Switzerland or the Gehry tower in New York. Paris recognizes him in the Cinémathèque française but also the completely new Louis-Vuitton Foundation, next to the Jardin d’Acclimatation, which features criss-crossing incredible glass panels. I'll be visiting that for real in a few weeks time. Looking at all these maquette at the one time was a bit too much for me. In fact, the little I have seen of his work has been fascinating. Somehow, I think it needs to be seen in real rather than in maquette form.